When soft tissue tears away from bone, reattachment becomes necessary. Various devices, including sutures alone, screws, staples, wedges, and plugs have been used in the past to secure soft tissue to bone.
Recently, various types of threaded suture anchors have been developed for this purpose. Some threaded suture anchors are designed to be inserted into a pre-drilled hole. Other suture anchors are self-tapping.
In repair of tissue attachments to bone, e.g. in the shoulder, techniques have been developed that vastly increase the repaired tissue to bone area resulting in a repair that more closely replicates the original structure. These repair techniques are commonly referred to as “double row fixation” and includes the typical edge repair location as well as an additional “medial row” of fixation using an additional, medially located (relative to the edge repair) set of suture anchors to secure tissue to bone.
Correct placement of the additional tissue anchors medial to the edge repair is often critical to the success of this repair technique. If the medial anchors are placed too medial in relation to the first row (i.e. too far medially inward from the tissue edge) damage can occur to the humeral head. Additionally, the relative placement of anchors is important. If the anchors are placed too close or far apart from each other, the strength of the repair may not add value to the overall reconstruction at the repair site.